Method and apparatus for emulating a fibre channel port
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsRobert G. Emberty, Craig Klein, David D. McBride, Gregory A. Williams
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Disclosed is a method and apparatus for emulating a fiber channel port. A controller is provided according to the invention that includes a fabric port and a virtual N port. The controller is adapted to buffer incoming data and convert an N port address provided with the data by a host computer to an instruction to the picker to couple the disk drive corresponding to the requested N port address to the virtual N port.
Claims19
A method for emulating a fibre channel port by a library of hard disk drives, comprising:
- providing an output port;
- addressing one or more hard disk drives in the library using a fibre channel communications protocol;
- fetching the one or more hard disk drives;
- and
- electrically coupling the one or more hard disk drives to the output port.
An article of manufacture for emulating a fibre channel port for use in a library of hard disk drives including a library controller, said article of manufacture comprising a computerreadable storage medium tangibly embodying a program of executable computer instructions which cause said controller to perform steps comprising:
- addressing one or more hard disk drives using a fibre channel communications protocol;
- fetching the one or more hard disk drives with a robotic picker;
- and
- electrically coupling the peripheral device to an output port.
An apparatus for emulating a fibre channel port for use in a library of hard disk drives, comprising a library having a fabric port connected to a host computer and an output port connected to a destination cell adapted for removable coupling to a selected one of the hard disk drives.
A method for communicating between a host computer and a library of one or more types of memory elements controlled by a library controller, comprising the steps of:
- forming a first association of a plurality of commands for instructing a plurality of different types of memory elements which the host computer expects the library to be according to a fibre channel protocol;
- forming a second association of said plurality of commands and a plurality of codes particularly adapted for controlling respective memory elements in the library;
- receiving a command from a host computer according to the fibre channel protocol;
- identifying the type of memory element which the host computer expects the library to be;
- identifying said command by consulting said first association;
- selecting, by the controller, one or more of the memory elements in the library for carrying out the command;
- identifying the associated said code by consulting said second association for said selected memory elements;
- and
- executing the identified code for carrying out the command in the library with said selected memory elements.
An article of manufacture for use in communicating between one or more host computers and a library of one or more types of memory elements controlled by a library controller, said article of manufacture comprising a computer-readable storage medium tangibly embodying a program of executable computer instructions which cause said controller to perform steps comprising:
- forming a first association of a plurality of commands for instructing a plurality of different types of memory elements which the host computer expects the library to be according to a fibre channel protocol;
- forming a second association of said plurality of commands and a plurality of codes particularly adapted for controlling respective memory elements in the library;
- receiving a command from a host computer according to the fibre channel protocol;
- identifying the type of memory element which the host computer expects the library to be;
- identifying said command by consulting said first association;
- selecting, by the controller, one or more of the memory elements in the library for carrying out the command;
- identifying the associated said code by consulting said second association for said selected memory elements;
- and
- executing the identified code for carrying out the command in the library with said selected memory elements.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.